


The Best Place To Be

by Measured_Words



Category: Death of the Necromancer - Martha Wells, Fall of Ile-Rien - Martha Wells
Genre: Absent Parents, Canonical Character Death, Children's Stories, Death References, Father Figures, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Kid Fic, Pie, Sweet, parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 18:03:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured_Words/pseuds/Measured_Words
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After her mother's death, Tremaine goes travelling with Uncle Ari.  But some things are still hard, when you're only seven...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Place To Be

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moemachina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moemachina/gifts).



> Thanks to my betas, shadow_truths and Kastaka! Remaining errors are all my own. I hope this satisfied your urge for Arisilde's parenting skills :D

Uncle Ari had forgotten to tell her the name of the village, but they played the Look Around game and the Hiding game as soon as they got to the little cottage. They would be staying here, he’d said, 'for at least a few days'. Now she was looking through some of the books she'd found during the game, and he was curled up in an old arm chair, staring at nothing.

Uncle Ari had been very quiet ever since they passed the gallows in the center of town. There had been a crowd standing around, but most of them had left after the cart with the body on it had pulled away. Tremaine had wanted to know what the man was being hanged for, but when she asked Uncle Ari, he'd just asked her if she wanted to go inside the bakery across the street. That's where they'd bought the meat pie for dinner later, and the little cream pastries for dessert. Only instead of making a fire in the kitchen, Uncle Ari was just sitting there.

Tremaine could usually tell if he was doing magic. She could feel it, a bit, and the little sphere he'd given her when her cat Macie died would make tinkling chimes. But she didn't think that was why he was quiet now. She didn't like it. It made her feel alone, even though he was right there in the chair. Travelling around with Uncle Ari was supposed to make her feel less alone, not more, but now she missed her mother, and even her father, and she didn't want to think about that at all.

"Will you read me a story?"

Uncle Ari didn't answer. She knew he must have heard her, but she also knew that sometimes his thoughts were very far away, or very deep inside his head. Tremaine put the book in his lap, and he picked it up absently, not looking at all - either at the book or at her.

It was a little scary. She didn’t want him to go away, too. Maybe that was why she reached over and pinched him on the arm, as hard as she could.

Any of the other adults in her life might have boxed her ears right then and there, but the look Uncle Ari gave her - of surprise and hurt, and something sadder that she didn't understand – was somehow worse. "Tremaine! What was that for?!" 

"I wanted you to read me a story!" She didn't want to sound scared, so she tried to sound angry, and she was, a little. She pouted and crossed her arms.

"A story?" He looked down at the book in his hands, as though he’d only just noticed he held it. "Pinching isn't a very nice way to ask for a story..."

"You were ignoring me!"

He frowned, and Tremaine wasn't sure if he was maybe just thinking, or maybe some of his thoughts were still far away, or maybe he was still sad that she’d pinched him. "I was... thinking about... stories." He looked at her again, and continued a little less absently. "You should be careful about being mean to sorcerers, Tremaine. They might do things you will not like very much at all."

"Like what?" Tremaine's imagination could conjure lots of terrible things that sorcerers could do. They could set you on fire, or turn your head into pudding, or make your bed come alive in the night and eat you, or summon daemons to do other more terrible things. But she couldn't imagine Uncle Ari doing any of those things, or doing anything to hurt anyone at all.

"Oh, we're very clever, we know just how to make you regret,” he said, leaning a little closer and raising his wispy eyebrows. “Like sending you to bed without your supper."

"That's not fair!" She knew it was wrong to pinch him, but the pie was supposed to be a special treat, and she'd picked it out herself – the baker said it had ground pork and rabbit and apples, and there were even little cut-outs shaped like rabbits on top of its perfectly browned crust. It could be eaten cold, but he said it would be better if you heated it for a little bit over the fire, but not too long or it would burn. It was small – just big enough for the two of them. The pie loomed large in her mind, but it wasn't what was really upsetting her.

"I don't think pinching people is very fair either."

"But you were ignoring me! And I just wanted a story, and I don't want to stay in another town, or go on another trip, I want to go home! And I want my mother!" Tremaine didn't know where all the words came from, but by the time they had all come out, she was almost yelling, and wiping away hot tears on her cheeks. Valliards weren't supposed to cry like babies, not when they were almost eight.

"Oh, Tremaine, dear..." Uncle Ari uncurled himself from his chair, setting aside the book, and reached out to pull her in for a close hug. Tremaine couldn't stop herself from sobbing then, but it was okay, it was Uncle Ari, and if no one else would take care of her, he would. "I'm sorry - I didn't mean to ignore you. We all miss your mother. I do, and your father does.... and he misses you too, and cares for you very much.” 

Tremaine shook her head a little at that. When they’d left, her father had made her promise to be good for Uncle Ari. He said that it would be good for her to get away for a bit, and that she would feel better when she came back. At the time, Coldcourt had seemed so empty and sad, because her mother was supposed to be there. Uncle Ari had promised her they would see all manner of strange and interesting things along the way, and they had seen some, she supposed. Mostly they visited little places like this, where there was nothing to see or do - only things she didn’t want to think about, like the body they took away in the cart. Going home didn’t feel like it would be any better either though - even if her father was there, which she didn’t believe anyway. Maybe ‘with Uncle Ari’ was the best place to be. And she had gone and pinched him.

She made herself stop crying, pulling back and rubbing her face on the back of her sleeve. “’m sorry,” she sniffed. The words sounded small, not big and important like she’d meant them to, and Uncle Ari still looked worried. His face was a little wet too.

“For what, sweetheart?”

She sniffed again. “For pinching. I didn’t mean to be mean.”

“Sometimes we do things when we’re upset that we think make sense, but then they don’t, really, when you think about them after.” He seemed far away again for a moment, before he looked back at her. “Were you upset?”

She hesitated a moment, but nodded - because it was Uncle Ari, and not her father, who was asking.

“I was upset too,” he confessed. “I was thinking about things that made me sad.”

Uncle Ari still sounded sad, too, so Tremaine reached out to give him a hug this time. He hugged her back, and smiled.

“Thank you, Tremaine. Now I feel better. Do you?”

“I don’t want you to go away, Uncle Ari.” She hugged him a little tighter, and he patted her shoulders absently, and she felt safe.

“I promise that I won’t go anywhere without you, Tremaine.”

“Okay.” She let go and looked up at him, to see if he was really feeling better, and he was smiling his sort of silly smile down at her, and reached out to smooth down her hair. She smiled back. “I feel better now, too.”

“Good! Then do you want me to read you a story? Or, no - I know!” He stood up quickly, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Let’s go put a fire on, and heat up that pie!”

Tremaine wasn’t sure if she was forgiven, or if he had just forgotten about the pinching, and her punishment. But maybe it wouldn’t hurt to push her luck a little. “And then will you read me a story?”

Uncle Ari smiled again. “I bet we can come up with a more exciting story than _The Adventures of Sir Thomas in Fayre_... How about - we can make a play, and you can be an actor, just like your father!”

Tremaine smiled back. It sounded like a delightful idea - so much so, even, that she didn’t bother to correct him. It was her mother who had been an actress...


End file.
